At the end of September, I hosted my second Giving Voice to Grief song circle at Lakewood Cemetery. (As you may recall, I am a Lakewood Cemetery Artist in Residence this year.)

As part of my residency, I am hosting four community singing-sounding circles in the Lakewood Chapel, one each season.

This sing was a learning experience and a practice in flexibility (aka improvisation). After a lovely event in June, I was excited to take what I learned about placemaking and my community composition and return to the dazzling Lakewood Chapel for another sing.

My collaborators and I planned a lot for this event. We debriefed from the summer event and streamlined our process for setting things up and taking things down. Over the weekend, I brought Million Artist Movement’s community quilts and other supplies to the chapel. I lined up my artist friends and my placemaking support folks. My mom had even come to town to attend the event. I was, we were ready. And then …

What’s that saying? We make plans and the gods laugh?

A Change in Plans

The morning of the FALL sing began with a call from Lakewood informing me that the chapel’s HVAC system wasn’t working and a proposal that we reschedule the event. Typically, air conditioning isn’t something you worry about in Minnesota in September, but it was forecasted to be 90 degrees!

After taking a moment to regroup, I made a trip to the cemetery. The chapel felt cool enough, but no one had really been in or out of it, there weren’t a bunch of people singing in it, and we hadn’t yet spent a couple of hours hauling in all the things we bring to stage the space for the event.

With phenomenal support from the Lakewood team, we made the decision to relocate from the Chapel to the Welcome Center.

Artistry Through Improvisation

Lakewood’s new Welcome Center opened in May 2024 and was designed with the goal of producing as much energy as it consumes in a year. While also a beautiful space, the Welcome Center is a very different space from the chapel, both visually and sonically.

The center is open and airy and … rectangular. The space has a meeting room, but we quickly decided it would be too small for our purposes, so we set up in the lobby, moving the garland we had planned to hang over the doorway to a place on the reception desk.

We brought the organ bench from the chapel over and used it to create our large community grounding space in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows which overlook green spaces.

photos by Bre McGee

The Four Virtues

For the SUMMER sing, we developed “stations” that sat below the tiled mosaics of women holding four virtues — hope, faith, love and memory. That architectural component didn’t exist in the Welcome Center but I had planned to use them. I’d created a number of prompts and invitations inspired by them, especially the memory virtue, which tied into the sing’s theme – Harvesting Memories and Tending Grief.

I wasn’t sure how to ground these virtues in the new space. Then Amanda, the residency program director, offered to let us use the paintings of the four women on display in cases in the welcome center. These paintings were the inspirations for the mosaics in the chapel and were painted by Ella Condie Lamb, wife of the chapel’s interior designer Charles Lamb.

Now we had a way to structure this new space. We placed the illustrations on easels, recreated the four stations, and staggered them with in a large rectangular space. Then we added the prompts and invitations I had created for use in the chapel.

We again invited people to help us activate the space for the 30 minutes prior to our singing. We arranged the MAM quilts throughout the space on frames; they helped frame and soften the space.

Tamiko again played her collection of singing bowls and chimes from the meeting room — the experience made even more ethereal as she played from behind a wall of gauzy white curtains.

Community members helped place things and responded to the invitations placed throughout the space. In keeping with the fall theme, we created paper leaves and invited people to write memories, names, quotes and wishes on them and then add them to baskets and displays throughout the space.

To begin our singing time, I slipped behind the curtain to join and sing with Tamiko. Then I asked Tamiko to walk through the space with a singing bowl. Since the singing time at these events is short, rather than doing a round of introductions, I invited folks to greet each other with an affirmation:

I am singing to you.
I am listening to you>
Thank you for making this memory with me.

Then I introduced a song I had written for this event, called To warm up our singing voices, I taught two songs (“I Will Be Open” and “Carry on Down“) and then I gave the instructions for the community composition.

We again sang the prompts of Giving Voice to Grief for about 20 minutes. The singing and sounding felt quite different in this tall reflective space. The chapel warms and rounds the sound, the welcome center feels/sounds more austere and the circle felt looser, perhaps because the sound traveled up and away rather than round and round. I I had a lovely moment exploring the way sound traveled up the staircase in the center and then we found our way to an ending.

We shared a few more affirmations and gratitudes and then reprised “Carry on Down” to bring the FALL sing to a close. While I certainly missed sounding in the vibrant chapel, it was good to affirm that the placemaking and community building can happen in any space. My deep thanks to all who shared their voices and themselves during our FALL circle. 

Our WINTER sing is Sunday, December 21st.

The post FALL: Harvesting Memories & Tending Grief first appeared on Songtaneous.

I knew when I applied that I wanted to focus on singing in the Lakewood Chapel. I decided upon a project of community singing/sounding circles, scheduling an event each season near the solstice (summer, winter) or equinox (fall, spring).

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting the space, Lakewood’s historic chapel is lined with stunning mosaic tile work installed over a century ago (1910).

The mosaic includes twelve angels in the dome above 24 windows which act as a sundial.

Additionally, images of four women representing four virtues — hope, love, faith and memory — adorn the side walls of the chapel.

The chapel is as beautiful acoustically as it is visually because it was designed for sounds in the center of the dome to be heard throughout the space.

Making a place for grief

I learned in my previous work with Grieving that placemaking helped facilitate our singing, so I decided to include 30 minutes of community placemaking before each of our song circles.

Now, some might argue that embellishing such a gorgeous space is not necessary, but for me placemaking is about making a container for the event that follows. I have learned that it gives participants time to settle into the space, as well as letting them add themselves to the space. Placemaking also makes the space ready for the specific event that will follow.

The mosaics of the four women representing the virtues inspired me to create mini grounding spaces or “stations” that resided beneath them. I also brought in sound bath artist (Tamiko French, pictured below), to play during our placemaking time as piece of sonic placemaking. My idea was to have sound in the space to prepare it, and us, for the singing and sounding that would follow.

photos by Bruce Silcox

The theme for our summer session was to explore what grief can teach us about change and love, what I called the “fruits” of grief. This is how we came to use fruit as a decorative element in our placemaking. We put baskets of fruit in the entryway and invited participants to make offerings to the “stations” throughout the space with items of their own and/or with fruit we provided.

The session was … so many things: abundant, tender, heart-wrenching, joyful … and (if you’ll pardon the pun) fruitful.

We began the evening by setting up our singing space together and then sang together for about an hour. I first taught some songs to the circle (“I Wanna Sing With You” and “Sing a Way Through“) — and then we moved into my community composition, “Giving Voice to Grief.”  After exploring the piece for about 20 minutes, we found our way to a closing including a found affirmation — “We are holding this grief together.” Once we finished sounding, we “returned” the chapel to Lakewood with the help of many of hands.

My deep thanks to all the community members who were a part of our Summer circle and for the thoughts you shared about your experiences. I also want to thank the artist friends who reminded me to use this residency to further my own artistic explorations, and last, but not least, a grateful shout out to the talented collaborators who helped me create and hold space that evening.

The FALL singing circle is Monday, Sept 29th.

The post SUMMER: Fruits of Grief (Change & Love) first appeared on Songtaneous.

In May, I traveled to DC to experience “Over My Head, I Hear Music In The Air,” a musical celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon presented by her daughter, Toshi. 

Dr. Reagon, among so many (MANY) things, was the founder of the seminal, Black a cappella women’s ensemble, Sweet Honey in the Rock.  A long time inspiration for my own a a cappella journeying (even before joining Give Get Sistet ), Sweet Honey pioneered activism and inclusion through songwork in countless ways, from what they sang and to whom, to when and where they sang it, and through being the first vocal group I know of who had a signing  (ASL) member. 

Hearing Reagon’s family and friends share stories and songs from the musical tradition Dr. Reagon both upheld and worked to fashion was significant and moving. I was especially moved to witness the performances of elders Charles Neblett and Rutha Mae Harris  –  original members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, who sang at numerous events and actions during the civil rights movement of the 60s.  

…

As I connect with more and more artists and projects doing griefwork, I see that grief and grieving have been at the center of pretty much all of my artistic work of the past few years. 

In 2022, I explored making improvised vocal music from the sounds we use to express sorrow. I wondered if the sounds themselves could help us digest grief so I titled the work, Giving Voice to Grief.

The following year, that improvised composition birthed a project of leading singing-sounding circles to help us hold grief communally. I’ve come to believe that perhaps injuries to communities, like the death of community members at the hands of police, the trauma of the pandemic and its aftermaths (or watching genocides in real time on social media ) might require spaces where people can grieve in community. 

To that end, I will continue my Giving Voice to Grief community singing circles in a residency at Lakewood Cemetery this year. I am part of a four-artist cohort and my project centers on holding seasonal sings to mark how we carry, digest and transmute grief over time. I’ll host four gatherings in Lakewood’s stunning (both visually and sonically) chapel and invite community to join me in singing to our grief and loss. 

The theme for our summer sounding is The Fruits of Grief: Change and Love and will take place Monday, June 16th at the Lakewood Chapel.

…

With the Giving Voice gatherings of the upcoming and past years; my writing, staging and performing of Heap Cull Gather Sow at Pillsbury House last year (Naked Stages); and my composer’s residency with Zietgeist this past winter (Precipice: Breaths For Diving), I’ve been creating an expanding collection of works about loss and sorrow. 

This month I am finishing work on yet another project* focused on how we use sound to explore and journey with grief.

Over the past 14 months, I composed improvised pieces for small ensembles (solo, duos and trios). The pieces involve text, numeric and graphic scores; work with collages; and live looping. I realized that I had started thinking of these pieces as movements in a much larger work – my “grief suite,” if you will.

What is most interesting (right now (c;) is how this griefwork is leading me into other artistic areas, many of them visual, like the set I created for Heap Cull Gather Sow, the placemaking and grounding spaces I’m crafting at my singing events, and work with collages and broken objects.

*Sarah M. Greer is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the MN State Arts Board thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

The post A Grief Suite? first appeared on Songtaneous.

For me, keywords take the place of resolutions because they connect to other words and other ideas in both direct and more organic ways. These connections — how they show up and link up — feel a lot like how I improvise. 

Last year’s word was WONDER. I chose it because I hoped to spend the year investigating my artistic ideas and appreciating the beauty of the journey to those discoveries. 

Then in May, I received an invitation to take part in a performing arts fellowship called Naked Stages. Naked Stages is program originated to help emerging artists (2-10 years of creating original generative work) to create a solo piece from conception through on-stage performance. With the support of the fellowship events and activities (workshops, a conference, work in progress sessions etc.), I created a solo show combining my prose, songs and place-making practices. 

…

I’ll readily admit to spending a healthy chunk of 2024 wondering how to make a theatrical solo performance. In the final program evaluation, I remarked that I often arrived to work sessions feeling like I hadn’t done my homework. But as each deadline arrived, I discovered I was able to create something. And, in hindsight, I can see that I simply decided that I would decide rather than asking someone else — program staff, my artist cohort — for answers. In fact, even though sometimes I kind of hoped someone would tell me how to create my show, I never asked anyone to tell me how.

Because I knew it needed to be my show.

As an improviser, I practice (and practice) trusting my intuition and this fellowship was all about exploring my own artistic process(es). And since at the heart of the project, I had to create a performance, I realized that I have been developing (and am developing) a multi-disciplinary praxis to do just that for quite some time.

For example, I knew I wanted the piece to include new songs/music so I returned to my 30 Days of Songtaneous Songs project to encourage musical/melodic ideas. September’s 30 Days sparked the gathering songs I incorporated into my show. 

The year before, I’d begun some visual art practices (no one was/is more surprised than I), such as collaging and assembling what my friend LN calls “emotional terrariums” that helped me uncover parts of the my performance piece, including much of my “set design.”  (Note: my stage is not at all naked. )

Recently, these visual undertakings have stimulated my curiosity about graphic scores and other approaches to improvised compositions. 

I guess even this blog could be considered part of my artistic praxis.

Hmm … was praxis my word for 2025?

…

As is pretty common, I thought about (and discarded) a number of words for 2025. I usually begin contemplating in December and friends & family share ideas for their words, which inspires a list of words like …

• action (too demanding)
• witness (not active enough)
• momentum (not focused enough)
• praxis (been there, done that?),
• compose (I have some music-making projects planned this year … )
• peace (“what the world needs now … ?”)

And then, as sometimes happens, a word simply … arrives.

Okay, technically, I was reviewing my keywords posts from years past and came upon a list of words I’d included to try to inspire others and ended up inspiring myself. In that list was this year’s keyword, and, as my friend M says, when you know, you know. (Ya know?) 

That’s what happened this time.

My keyword for 2025 is …

TRUST.

(Oof.)

Because TRUST feels hard and challenging and maybe even wrong or gullible, but simultaneously important and necessary as I/we approach the coming year and grapple with all the terrors  and consequences of the preceding ones. 

But … (So?)

I need to trust in my art-making and its importance, trust in my collaborators and our collaborations, and most important, trust in the goodwill of others and our ability to find ways forward that serve, care for, and elevate everybody. 

Finally, as I learn from improvising again and again (and again and again and again and again), TRUST that there is a way forward that we can – and might only – find when we listen with our heads and our hearts. 

The post My 2025 Keyword first appeared on Songtaneous.

I began work on Heap Cull Gather Sow in May when I was awarded a fellowship with Pillsbury House + Theater through their program for emerging artists called Naked Stages.

Naked Stages is a 7-month fellowship that “provides performance artists with the time, resources, and mentorship needed to bring distinctive visions to life on stage.” In addition to regular feedback sessions, we’ve participated in workshops with local creators and nationally-renowned artists. (A special part of our fellowship was attending the first Theatrical Jazz Conference. ) We’ve also taken part in production meetings focused on the business side of art, from audience development to technical support, in efforts to assist us in developing a sustainable, artistic careers.

This year the Naked Stages cohort has four artists: hal sansone (Trans Man Gay Club Disco Fantasy), Skye Reddy (The Field of Three Horizons), Atim Opaka (This body is a gift: Messages from the Ancestors) and yours truly (Heap Cull Gather Sow). We will share our pieces in 6 shows across two weekends (Nov 14-16 and Nov 21-23, all at 7pm).

…

Getting started

Much of my work since 2020 has been focused on or sourced from my own searching for ways to hold, digest, transmute, and siphon grief. As I began work on this show, I was concluding a year of work on an improvised vocal work, Giving Voice to Grief.

And with daily additions to the list of things hurting my heart via world events and social media, I realized that I have been improvising practices to help my head and my heart.

So when asked to bring “up to 5 minutes” of my “show” to prepare for our works in progress session, I started by revisiting a post I wrote here about making my “jar of broken pieces.” I outlined (and then abstracted) some of the steps of the ceremonial praxis I improvised while assembling the jar. That text became the prose I workshopped in our first session.

Then during our 3-day retreat (also in July), I did some staging and movement work with the “ceremony text” and began gathering (pun intended) bits of writing and ideas for songs/lyrics.

Of course, I knew I wanted to have songs/singing in my show so last month I moved my annual November improv project – 30 Days of Songtaneous Songs project – to September to help me find sonic seeds for my show. (I also figured I was gonna be a little too busy next month to post a song a day. ) Posting a song each day helped me create and collect a lot of ideas, including the frames of two gathering songs that have become scenes in Heap Cull Gather Sow.

…

Working with a director

In spite of all those years I worked as the vocal coach for Northeast’s musical theater program, I actually don’t know a lot about making theater. Fortunately, Naked Stages provides funding for each artist to work with a director.

I have the privilege and pleasure of working with Dipankar Muhkerjee, as the director for my piece.

I first worked with Pangea World Theater and really began getting to know Dipankar and Meena (Pangea’s founders and artistic directors) in the summer of 2020 when I was part of The Burning Truth Project.

(It’s worth noting that I’d been hearing about Pangea for a number of years prior. Given all the time I spend improvising, I don’t know why I continue to be surprised at how consistently people and places arrive “right on time”?)

In fact, Dipankar deserves credit for planting the seed which resulted in my applying to the Naked Stages fellowship program in the first place. After a rehearsal or a gathering (I can’t quite recall), he said, “We should do something together? Maybe a show with your music?” This memory of this conversation surfaced when I saw the posting for the fellowship. So while I had no idea how I might create a theatrical work, I thought to myself “Dipankar thinks there’s a show there” so I applied.

I’ve spent some (okay, a lot?) of this fellowship feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing. I have to keep reminding myself that that’s the point. I also remind myself regularly that I actually know what I’m doing, even if I’m still figure out what I’m making.

So the Dipankar and I have been meeting regularly and the show is arriving in pieces, mostly through (surprise, surprise) improvisations.

…

Lastly, I can’t help but notice the amount of tactile processes and crafted items that have been part of my evolving griefwork praxis – collages, gathering and interacting with broken things, mending/hand sewing, placemaking, etc. Less surprising is the fact that many of these practices – and items – are finding their way into my show.

See the show!

Heap Cull Gather Sow – November 15, 21 and 23rd – 7pm
Pillsbury House + Theatre
3501 Chicago Avenue South, Mpls
Get tix (pay what you can pricing)

The post My Own Show: Heap Cull Gather Sow first appeared on Songtaneous.